German Hospital, Dalston

Introduction

A comprehensive history of this establishment can be found in the work of Elizabeth McKellar which appears to have been the major work used as a basis for other on-line references. In it she describes how the hospital was to be "fully staffed from the lowliest servant to the highest consultant by German speakers". Though the hospital, founded in 1845, adopted the same scheme re doctors as would be found in any other English voluntary hospital, the nursing was arranged on very different lines as it was to be undertaken by Protestant (Lutheran) deaconesses from the Kaiserwerth Institute at Düsseldorf - this use of a religious order was to cause tension in the 1890s as they were accused of discrimination against Roman Catholic and the, by then substantial, German speaking Jewish population that had arrived after 1880 fleeing pogroms in Eastern Europe. Any discrimination appears to have been ameliorated e.g. a kosher kitchen opened in 1900, and the various religious groups co-existed - the hospital had also by then attracted a significant clientele among the English poor of the district.

The hospital staffed by both German and naturalised German speakers continued with its nursing staff being supplied by the strongly Protestant religious order - a state of affairs that continued for most of WW1 without it seems the British authorities being fully aware, as can be gleaned from the following documents found in FO 383/436/62389 file.

Text

Minute dated 8th April 1918 from Home Office to Secretary Prisoners of War Department Foreign Office

In reply to your Letter of the 9th February last (24420/1218/P) enclosing copies of notes from the Swiss minister and the German Foreign Office with reference to members of the Westfalian Deaconess Community "Sarepta" carrying on work in this country, I am directed by the Secretary of State to transmit to you herewith a copy of a report which has been obtained from the Commissioner of Police from which it will be seen that practically all the Sisters or Deaconesses of the Community in question are employed as nurses at the German Hospital, Dalston.
The Secretary of State would have wished, if it had been practicable, to repatriate these nurses to Germany before this but the Hospital is still doing useful work by treating a number of urgent or otherwise special cases of civilian prisoners of war and, on an average, about a hundred other in-patients who are Germans or of German origin and out-patients, It would be a matter of some difficulty to make arrangements to dispose of these cases otherwise and the Hospital would be unable to carry on its work if the German nurses in question were taken away, without being replaced by others, and the Secretary of state does not think it would be practical to obtain nurses to take their place in this country.
He is of opinion, however, that German nurses should be sent back to Germany as soon as this course becomes feasible, and he is strongly opposed to any arrangements for sending other members of the order here.

The report from the C.I.D. New Scotland Yard indicates a considerable gap in the Authorities knowledge

With reference to the attached Home Office File containing a Note Verbale of the German Foreign Office received through the medium of the Swiss Legation, asking for certain concessions respecting members of an order known as the Sarepta Community of Westfalian Deaconesses, said to be at present resident in London, and in reply to Home Office minute on the same :-
I beg to report having made exhaustive enquiry in various directions in London in order to identify this community or order, and to locate its members, and have at length collected the following facts
The Sarepta Community of Westfalian Deaconesses is a German religious nursing order which, although little known in this country, is one of the foremost institutions of its kind in Germany. Its Headquarters are situated at Bielefield in Westphalia, where it was founded somewhere about the middle of the last century, by a German divine named von Bodelschwingh This order trains and supplies nurses to most of the German hospitals, and it also possesses Krankenhauser [hospitals] of its own in various places in Germany. Nurses of this order, prior to the war, were sent to hospitals in other countries, notably France, England and in the Riviera. In addition to hospital work and sick nursing, many of the sisters are trained for social and relief work, and as school teachers. These are officially styled "Gemeneschwestern" [Community sisters?], - as distinct from the nursing sisters,

Regarding the members of this order who are at present in this country, my enquiries have established the fact that their number is 17, and that they are all in London. Of this number, fourteen are on the staff of the German Hospital at Dalston, two are in a baby home at 16 Cedars Road, Clapham Common, whilst the remaining one is at an institution for old people at 47 Nightingale Road, Clapton.
I have interviewed Mr Cochrane, Secretary of the German hospital, Dalston (an Englishman) and the Matron Sister Elise Jürke, who is herself a member of the Order. From them I received the information that the German Hospital has a contract, dating back twenty years, with the "Sarepta Diakonessenhaus" at Bielefeld, whereby the latter institution undertakes to keep a constant supply of Sisters available for the hospital staff, sufficient to keep the latter at full strength. A certain sum is paid per head to the Diakonessenhaus, which arranges everything else, including pensions of retiring sisters, etc. This arrangement was very necessary for the running of the Hospital, as otherwise, even in peace time, it would be very difficult to obtain sufficient number of trained nurses to keep a full staff going.
All the sisters of the order now in this country have been here since before the war, and some of them for many years. From the Hospital several have returned to Germany since the outbreak of the war, (the number at the Hospital in 1914 was upwards of twenty), but no fresh blood has been imported during this time

(sd) HUBERT MORSE P.C.

The hospital had provided its services to include civilian prisoners of war and this had it seemed caused some public disquiet and references to it being a nest of spies. On what I suspect were cost grounds, as in these pre National health days, it was expected that the hospitals be paid for its services, most if not all civilian prisoners were from early 1917 to be treated at the Dartford War Hospital

There does not appear to have been any visit of inspection of the Hospital by the Neutral Powers representing German + Austro-Hungarian interests in Britain. The use of this religious order to provide nursing sisters continued until WW2 when all the German staff were arrested and sent to the Isle of Man, many it seems were ardent Nazis. They never returned to the hospital which became part of the NHS in 1948 and closed in 1987.

References

Elizabeth McKellar The German Hospital Hackney A social and architectural history 1845-1987 Hackney Society London 1991 ISBN 0-95065587-2 [long out of print but can be found on-line as a pdf scan of the booklet

Any comments, errors or omissions gratefully received The Editor Text + Transcription © F.Coakley , 2020